“Don’t carry this in your heart, child,” she said softly. “I’ll speak to him.”
I lowered my gaze and gave her a faint nod.
What else was there to do?
After they were gone, the silence in the mansion deepened.
A little while later, my phone lit up again. Vivienne. When I answered, her voice sounded older than it had a few hours earlier. Tired. Frayed. She told me I was the only woman she had ever recognized as Cassian’s future wife. She said he would come to his senses. She said he would apologize.
I listened without saying much.
Then I ended the call and set the phone aside.
I had no use for apologies that had not yet been given.
I sat alone in the front room after that, listening to the wind scrape softly against the tall windows. The estate felt strangely hollow. For years, I had built my life around Cassian’s presence. I used to know the exact rhythm of his footsteps in the corridor, the sound of him loosening his cuff links, the careless way he would drop into a chair and ask what I had saved for him to eat.
That night, I waited for none of it.
When dawn came, I was already awake.